The Korean government had pledged to spend over a billion U.S. dollars on medical technology over the next ten years to tackle dementia.
And as a result Korean researchers say they've recently developed a new diagnostic method which can predict the chances of developing Alzheimer's disease.
Park Se-young has more.
Alzheimer's disease is called a family disease because it is often just as devastating to the caregivers and family members of the patient.
Since there is still no effective treatment or medicine for Alzheimer's disease, the best options are prevention and early diagnosis.
Now, Korean researchers have developed a method to accurately predict the chances of developing the disease using DNA analysis.
"By further analyzing type-T and type-G genetic variations that we found, we can predict Alzheimer's much more accurately."
Based on the analysis of eight-thousand Koreans, two-thousand Japanese people and 20-thousand Westerners, the National Research Center for Dementia has worked out why Asians face a higher risk of Alzheimer's disease.
"We found that a greater proportion of Asians have type-T variation than Westerners, thereby facing a higher risk of Alzheimer's."
The diagnostic method is capable of quickly analyzing a DNA sample, …collected by scraping a cotton swab inside the patient's mouth.
It has 95 percent accuracy and is expected to cost about 90 US dollars.
The researchers have obtained a national patent for the diagnostic method, …and trials could begin as early as the first half of this year.
Park Se-young, Arirang News.
